Hiya guys, we have the super sweet Scotty Cade stopping by with his upcoming release Knobs, we have a fantastic guest post where Scotty tells us where he discovered the inspiration for Knobs, we have a great excerpt and a fantastic giveaway, so enjoy the post and leave a comment to enter the giveaway! <3 ~Pixie~

Knobs

Scotty Cade

Angus Conrad (Gus) McRae is a privileged Charlestonian following family tradition and attending the Citadel, harboring big dreams of a military career. With the infamous hell week behind him, he quickly realizes being a Knob (a freshman cadet) is just as tough—especially for a man like Gus who must keep his sexuality a secret. Then a sudden dorm reassignment places him in a room with one of the football team’s top players: working-class jock Stewart Adam (Sam) Morley—and life gets increasingly complicated.

Gus can’t imagine a man like Sam as gay, yet there’s something between them—exchanged glances, the occasional innuendo. Sexual tensions rise, leaving them more than friends but less than lovers. Gus and Sam know there’s too much to lose and they must keep their attraction hidden. If they fail, they risk destroying their hopes and dreams for a prosperous future in a military world that’s not yet ready to accommodate masculine gay men.

Scotty Cade!

Hi All,

Scotty Cade here. First I’d like to thank MM Good Book Reviews for allowing me to tell you a little bit about “Knobs,” my newest release and how it came about. Later in the posts I will be telling you how you can win a book from my backlist.  Before we get started, here is the blurb for Knobs.

Angus Conrad (Gus) McRae is a privileged Charlestonian following family tradition and attending the Citadel, harboring big dreams of a military career. With the infamous hell week behind him, he quickly realizes being a Knob (a freshman cadet) is just as tough—especially for a man like Gus who must keep his sexuality a secret. Then a sudden dorm reassignment places him in a room with one of the football team’s top players: working-class jock Stewart Adam (Sam) Morley—and life gets increasingly complicated.

Gus can’t imagine a man like Sam as gay, yet there’s something between them—exchanged glances, the occasional innuendo. Sexual tensions rise, leaving them more than friends but less than lovers. Gus and Sam know there’s too much to lose and they must keep their attraction hidden. If they fail, they risk destroying their hopes and dreams for a prosperous future in a military world that’s not yet ready to accommodate masculine gay men.

And here’s how it all started. The Inspiration for Knobs!

One Friday afternoon in the fall of 2008, my husband Kell took me to one of the Friday parades at The Citadel, the military college of Charleston SC. I’d never been and was excited to see the campus. What I didn’t expect was to be so enamored with the entire experience. The feeling I got when we walked through the campus gate is something very hard to describe and something I doubt I was able to adequately capture in the book. But don’t think I didn’t try.

Let me set the stage.

When we entered the Hagood gate, I immediately felt like I was entering something larger then life and I swear I heard harps and angels singing.

The first thing that caught my eye was a six-feet tall by six-feet wide highly polished gold replica of the Citadel class ring, proudly occupying one corner of Summerall Field, or the parade deck, as it is also commonly called. By the way, Summerall Field is a large grassed parcel smack in the middle of the campus where all the outdoor parades, ceremonies, and presentations take place.

The next thing I saw were hundreds of cadets in full uniform mulling about walking hurriedly here and there. Of course Kell says he feels certain that’s when I heard the harps and angels singing, but damn him, he wasn’t in my head. Although, I may have heard the harps and angels twice. 🙂

Anyway, I digress. So, some cadets had shaved heads, which I later found out were the freshman’s or “Knobs” as they are so commonly called because similarity between their heads and door knobs. And the Knobs were walking very quickly, chin against their chest, in a special Knob lane surrounding Summerall field. Each time a Knob would pass or approached an upperclassman, he would stop and salute. It really was something to see.

The entire campus is just magical. Such an air of purpose and discipline. The barracks and other campus buildings all resemble castles, complete with towers, crenels and parapets. The barracks have black and white marbled courtyards in the center of each building and this is where the cadets meet in formation each morning before classes begin. As we walked around the parade deck towards the seating area, we passed the Summerall Chapel, the famous clock tower, academic buildings to the left and right as well as numerous sports venues within the campus.

We made our way to the bleachers, took seats and within minutes, out of nowhere I heard in the distance, marching drums, horns and bagpipes. With each second the sounds got louder and louder until a squad bursts onto the parade deck and began marching across the field. Again, I know I’m not doing the experience justice, but it gave me goose bumps. Minutes later eight battalions of a hundred or more cadets began taking the field, marching in sync until the field was covered in cadets maneuvering in and out of one another in perfect unison.

All of a sudden with the thump of the drums, everything came to halt. I just about jumped out of my skin when the cadets to my right started firing the campus cannons. Smoke lingered on the field for a few minutes and then the Corp of Cadets started marching again.

This went on for at least thirty more minutes. The bagpipers were the first to arrive and the last to leave the field, until the sound simply faded away again and silence loomed once again. The entire experience has stayed with me since then and even now its giving me goosies as I write this.

Needless to say, I spend a lot of time at the Citadel. Kell and I have since joined the gym there. I play racquetball with my nephew, a Citadel graduate, there and not one visit by friends is complete without a tour of the campus. I only wish I could have been able to attend when I was of college age, long ago I might add, but I would have loved to have been a part of something so much larger than just one person.

In closing, I hope if and when when you read Knobs, you get a small sense of the campus life and you can experience a little of the same excitement I felt on my first trip. And if you’ve ever experienced something that moved you the way The Citadel moved me, please posts about it. Each entry will be eligible for a free copy of “The Royal Street Heist.” Book one in the Bissonet & Cruz Investigations series.

~Scotty~

Excerpt

Leaving Behind the Comforts of Home

Stewart Adam Morley – Sam

Sitting outside the Greyhound terminal, Sam fought to keep down the bile burning his throat. The offensive smell of diesel, billowing around him in thick clouds, was only part of what was causing his stomach to roll. He was about to step onto a bus that would take him away from everything and everyone he knew, leaving behind the comforts and familiarity of home.

Growing up in Southfield, just outside of Detroit, wasn’t always what he’d call comfortable. While some of the areas were nice, the block he’d grown up on wasn’t the safest. However, he knew the streets, knew what areas to avoid, and once he was behind the multiple locks on his front door, enjoyed a sense of security only home could provide.

He knew nothing about Charleston, South Carolina. The people were all strangers, the streets unfamiliar. Yet it would be his home for the next four years.

If I survive.

Yeah, that unnerving thought had played in his head a time or two or a hundred.

Sam leaned his head against the brick wall and closed his eyes as the nausea increased. He clutched his backpack in his trembling hands, his two duffel bags piled securely next to his feet. Jesus, what the hell had he been thinking when he’d accepted that damn football scholarship?

He’d been offered both academic and athletic scholarships to numerous colleges and universities around the country. Originally he’d turned them all down—too damn scared, too unsure—and chosen to attend the local community college. He’d taken the easy route, the safe one that was closer to home. However, his dream of attending the Citadel Military College, which began when he’d first seen a pamphlet one of the seniors had been tossing around during Sam’s freshman year, kept nagging at him. It refused to be silenced. He’d worked his ass off to keep his grade point average high, had a record year on the field as a senior, and after a year and a half of hemming and hawing, was thankful the Citadel was still interested enough in him playing for the Bulldogs to offer him a scholarship. Nothing like taking the road most challenging, he thought with a sigh.

“Greyhound 1125. Final destination Charleston, South Carolina. Now boarding.”

The announcement had Sam taking a deep breath, getting to his feet, and again wrinkling his nose at the horrible smell around him. He shouldered his backpack, grabbed his two duffel bags, and fell in line behind those rushing for the bus, his steps heavy and sluggish. He wasn’t in any hurry to start the twenty-four-hour ride. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to begin the next journey of his life. He did, and knew he was making the right choice. But he was still going to miss his mom, his brother and sister—even if they were pains in the ass sometimes—and his friends.

Don’t go. Just turn around and go home.

Sam hesitated for a long moment, again questioning what the hell he was doing, his head filled with doubt. The known versus the unknown, the easy versus the hard; the same battle he’d been fighting for the last year and a half. But like every other time he’d had these thoughts, the challenge was too exciting, too alluring, to ignore. He shoved that little voice away, pushed past the fear and doubt, and handed his ticket and duffel bags to the attendant.

“No turning back now,” he whispered to himself.

He’d never been away from home, and the anxiety over leaving what he knew wasn’t the only thing weighing heavily on him. He was twenty, and it was time, but the thought of his mom having to care for his younger siblings and herself without him around was daunting. He was the man of the house. He’d taken on that role at twelve when his stepdad had followed in the shoes of his real dad and split. No note, no forwarding address, just gone. Well, back then they hadn’t needed the lazy bastard. His mom and siblings had him. But now he was also leaving. Not like his father and stepdad had, but he was leaving all the same. It didn’t matter how many times Mom had tried to convince him otherwise, he felt like he was abandoning his family, his responsibilities, and it sucked. Down in the pit of his gut and the center of his chest, it sucked.

Sam found himself a seat toward the back of the bus, relieved when it looked as if he’d have the entire row to himself—at least on this leg of the journey. He popped in his earbuds and turned up the volume on his used iPod, a going-away gift from his mom, letting the soothing sounds of Joshua James help ease the panic that still gripped him. Taking in a deep breath through his nose, Sam let it out slowly through his slightly parted lips. He leaned his head against the window as the bus slowly pulled away from the terminal. The trepidation that had kept him from sleeping the night before, leaving him exhausted, combined with the rambling, rhythmic movements of the bus, made it impossible to keep his eyes open, and blessedly his brain shut down. He wrapped his arms around his backpack, head resting against the cool glass, and slipped into a fitful sleep before the bus even made it out of the city.

Moving hesitantly, Sam walked through the archway that led to the center and heart of the Citadel campus. Twilight cast eerie shadows on Summerall Field, or the parade deck as it was frequently called. His pulse raced and even in the stifling heat, a chill ran down his spine. Sam wrapped his arms around his chest and forced his feet to keep moving. He could feel the icy tendrils of fear gripping him, the adrenaline pumping through his veins, demanding he flee, but something stronger compelled him forward. Men with shaved heads—dressed smartly in full-dress wool jackets, white trousers, spit-shined leather shoes, and cross belts forming bright white X’s across their chests connected to a cartridge box—marched silently past him. In one white-gloved hand, they held their weapons against their shoulders. To Sam’s horror, each one turned hollow eyes on him and pointed at him as they passed. The contempt on their hard faces made him shudder.

The grass was cool and lush beneath his feet as Sam rushed past the parading cadets, and for the first time, he realized his feet were bare. Not only was he shoeless, his pants were torn and filthy, as was his T-shirt. A sour odor emanated from his clothing, much like the stench of rotting garbage. He wiped his palms across the front of his shirt as he fled, trying to wipe away the dirt, only to find his hands were covered in filth and his actions doing little more than increasing the size of the stains. He looked and smelled worse than some of the homeless men he’d encountered back home in the downtown area. No wonder the cadets were so disgusted.

Keeping his head down, Sam moved quickly across the grounds. He’d been here before—he recognized the six-foot replica of the Citadel graduates’ class ring—but in the dusk it looked foreign, almost like a large humpbacked creature, poised to strike. The flags upon the tall poles flanking the east perimeter waved wildly, their shadows making the ground seem as if it had come alive, yet no wind blew. Keep moving. Go, go, go, a voice in his head screamed. You don’t belong here. Sam quickened his pace, ran past men in blue T-shirts and blue shorts with neon-yellow belts who stopped when they saw him to point and sneer. Go!

As Sam reached the center of the field, he stopped dead in his tracks. Not like hitting a barrier, stopping his forward motion, but rather as if he were suddenly glued to the spot. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and his heart hammered painfully as he scanned the area around him. A military vehicle sat in each corner. Tanks, a helicopter, a fighter jet—all pointed toward him, targeting him. Sam couldn’t see the occupants of the vehicles, but somehow he knew they were there, staring at him, pointing and sneering as the others had done. Sam jerked when a flash of light lit up the field. The men around him began to chant, too low for Sam to make out, but the tone was ominous.

“Ready,” a voice boomed from near a row of cannons.

The chant grew louder but remained incoherent.

“Set.”

“You don’t belong here.” Glowing eyes surrounded the parade field. “You don’t belong here.”

“Fire!”

The ground shook with the force of the explosion, the noise deafening, and Sam covered his ears and screamed.

Sam jerked awake and scanned the area with wild eyes, his breath coming in painful gasps. The woman in the next row was looking down at the knitting in her hands; the gentleman next to her appeared to be sleeping.

“Oh God! Just a dream,” he muttered and slumped back against the seat, working to get his pounding heart and rapid breathing to return to normal.

About Scotty

Scotty Cade left Corporate America and twenty-five years of Marketing and Public Relations behind to buy an Inn & Restaurant on the island of Martha’s Vineyard with his partner of over twenty years.   He started writing stories as soon as he could read, but just five years ago for publication.  When not at the Inn, you can find him on the bow of his boat writing gay romance novels with his Shetland sheepdog Mavis at his side.  Being from the south and a lover of commitment and fidelity, most of his characters find their way to long healthy relationships, however long it takes them to get there.  He believes that in the end, the boy should always get the boy.

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Giveaway!

Win an ecopy of “The Royal Street Heist.” Book one in the Bissonet & Cruz Investigations series!

If you’ve ever experienced something that moved you the way The Citadel moved Scotty, please comment about it